Ice-Out in Nenana Alaska happened and I didn't even realize it

When I checked the Nenana Ice Cam yesterday the Tripod was still standing on the ice, but I didn't realize the event was already over.

It seems the ice broke up just enough to allow the Tripod to move a short distance to trip the clock in the tower it is attached to by a long cable.

The hitch was most of the ice was still in the river, and the Tripod evidently flowed upstream only just a little, which is to the right on the screen, and very odd. Normally it flows downstream, obviously.

I should have realized something was up because the flag rope was down, lying on the ice.

When I checked a few hours later the Tripod was gone and the water was flowing and I realized I had missed it as the ice cam page had the message:

THE ICE OFFICIALLY BROKE AND THE CLOCK STOPPED ON APRIL 30TH, 2021 AT 12:50 PM AST. THE 2021 JACKPOT IS $233,591.00 

Should have looked for that message the first time.

The Washington Times had the story here.

So add another Ice-Out to the period April 30-May 7 when the vast majority of them have occurred anyway since 1917. The National Weather Service pretty much nailed it predicting April 29-May 5.

Hard to go wrong with that in any year, to be honest.

The National Weather Service predicts Ice-Out for the Tanana River at Nenana will be at the usual time, with river ice normal depth after big cold snap in February and March into April

 

Ice-Out for The Nenana Ice Classic is going to be delayed, but it's too late to buy your ticket anyway

All-time April low could fall in Alaskan city :

"A cold snap this extreme in April hasn’t been experienced in the Fairbanks area since 1911, when three consecutive record lows were set from April 9-11," Duff said. Two of these record lows are likely to be challenged during the latest cold wave, including Thursday night’s record of minus 16 F and Friday night’s record of minus 32 F.

Nenana Ice Classic 2021 

Hey! Where's the rope on that thing?

Earliest Ice-Out ever since 1917 was April 14 (2019).

Trend for Tanana River Ice-Outs 1917-2020 continues to show them occurring much earlier after 104 years

This is a corrected chart and supersedes all previous iterations. Data in the chart has been double-checked again against printed versions of the data available from the Nenana Ice Classic. One or two dates were incorrectly shown in previous versions of my chart through 2018. 

The overall trend earlier in those charts remains unchanged, however, and has been reinforced by the record-setting early Ice-Out in 2019 on April 14. This is because of the preponderance of relatively earlier Ice-Outs April 30 through May 7, of which there are forty-five. With or without the record early Ice-Out on April 14, 2019 and the relatively early 2020 Ice-Out on April 27, the median date remains the same: May 4. Half the Ice-Outs occur before that date, half after.

Otherwise from April 14-29 there are 27 early Ice-Outs vs. May 8-20 with 32 late Ice-Outs:

April 14-21: 3

April 22-29: 24

April 30-May 7: 45

May 8-15: 29

May 16-20: 3.

Is "global warming" at work?

If you back out all data from the year 2000 onward, here's what you get:

April 14-21: 2

April 22-29: 14

April 30-May 7: 37

May 8-15: 28

May 16-20: 2.

Median date: May 5.

Obviously the biggest impact since 1999 has been on the week April 22-29, adding ten early Ice-Outs, moving the median date earlier by one day after 20 years.

Another thing it does, however, is balance out the data surrounding April 30-May 7, which otherwise was weighted heavier later, with far more Ice-Outs in the second week of May than the last week of April. It could be that over the long course of history prior to 1917 we're missing a lot of early Ice-Outs which recent warming has only now supplied.

For example, we know early 20th century temperatures were warm enough for Roald Amundsen famously to make it through the Northwest Passage from east to west in his small wooden herring ship between 1903-1906. He finally traversed the western half of the Canadian island archipelago during 1905 after being ice bound in the heart of it for two winters. In August 1905 he put in at Herschel Island 5 miles off the north coast of Canada due to ice. From there he skied 500 miles south to Eagle, Alaska, in order to send a message by telegraph wire of the news of his singular achievement. The wire was sent on December 5, 1905. Amundsen spent two months in Eagle before skiing back to his ship and sailing on to Nome in 1906, where his ship then remained until 1972. 

Eagle, AK, incidentally, is about 200 miles due east of the Fairbanks Area, which includes Nenana. The mean average temperature for the Fairbanks Area since 1999 is 28.6 vs. 26.3 1904-1999.

The data for Ice-Outs since 1999 is what it is, evidence of warming.

 

Tanana River Alaska "Ice-outs" have been trending earlier, moving from the end of the first week of May on average to the last day of April

Video of Tanana River Ice Out in Nenana AK today at noon

Here. And here.

The siren goes off at about 16 seconds in at the first link. The second link is not video but patched together shots from the Tripod cam.

We have Tanana River ice-out in Nenana AK today at noon

Here.

Here's the Nenana Ice Classic Ice-Out Data for the last hundred years

Tanana River Ice-Outs in Alaska have been getting gradually earlier in the last 100 years

Nenana Ice Classic 2017: When will the ice go out this year?

The tripod goes up on the Tanana River in Nenana, AK next Sunday, March 8th at 3:30pm

The Tripod Days schedule is here, inaugurating the Nenana Ice Classic 2015.

The latest ice-out ever was May 20th, 2013, covered here. The earliest was April 20th, 1940. In 2014 ice-out was pretty early, on April 25th.

You can watch for the ice-out on the Nenana Ice Cam, which is updated every 30 seconds, here. Next week you can watch this cam as the tripod is installed on the frozen Tanana River. A raffle is held awarding a big jackpot to the closest guesser of the ice-out. When the ice goes out, the tripod goes whoosh! with the ice. People have been known to park in the parking lot on the shoreline and amuse cam-viewers with their antics in the runup to the ice-out.

Latest Tanana River, AK, Ice-Out In 97 Years Today, Surpassing 1964 Record By Hours

Story here, where they live-blogged the event linked to the official Nenana Alaska "Ice Classic" webcam.

Up there you pays you money and takes you chances. But it's only $2.50 for a ticket, on which you predict the date and time of the ice-out, which seems to occur as early as April 20 and as late as, well, today. If you're the closest, you win the kitty, this year over $318K.

Previously scientists were wont to point to seemingly earlier and earlier ice-outs on this river as evidence of the phenomenon of global warming. The long record in this location, however, has shown a cyclicality of its own which on days like today produces silence from that community. 

It was like watching paint dry overnight, but one guy did show up all alone in the parking lot to entertain everyone for a moment by mooning the cam, which is fixed on the tripod-like marker placed out in the ice every March for the event.